57 letters
by KcCastillo33
Summary: outsider fanfic from sodapops point of view after the deaths of his two friends.about the gangs life,temptations and tension with the soc's.Also a love story tied in about the 57 letters sodapop sends to sandy after she left.please read!
1. Chapter 1

my name is sodapop, and im going to be 17 next week. within the past year my life changed; flipped upside down. I dropped out of school; work at the gas station and two of my friends lay 6 feet under the ground. This was just another obstacle throughout my life. My brothers and I live by ourselves since our parents are deceased and try to get by in this tough town. I draw no pity. I have many positives in my life, and make the best out of the situations.

Steve took the rag he had been using to clean his hands while he fixed the cars at the small auto shop, and threw it at me

"You've got some grease on your face there soda" he said jokingly indicating it with his finger.

"Ha-ha real funny" I replied chucking it back at him.

Steve and I closed up the shop and hopped into his car like we did at 4 everyday. Even though we tried to clean the grease off we always managed to still have some on ourselves. We joked about the funny customers we see throughout the day, but today it seemed hard for me to concentrate. He pulled the car into the drive and put the car in park. steve got out and hanged with us for alittle while. You could always find steve at our house, some actually think he lives here. Actually everyone practically lives here. We try to live our lives and move on.

Two of our friends, Johnny and dally have died a couple months ago. It's the hardest for my little brother, pony boy. It took pony over 2 weeks to stop hallucinating and thinking they were still alive. He has been getting better every day but he still shows sometimes. I'd be a liar if I said that their deaths hadn't affected all of us. We all think about them and still find ourselves sad about it. I stopped wishing they were still alive after the first month because I know that they are dead and I can't change that, but I miss them a lot, and now we are finally starting to get back to ourselves again.

"have you heard from sandy lately" steve asked casually outside our front door.

"na, im over her I haven't sent her a letter sense the first one"

I lied. I acted like it wasn't a big deal, but it was. Sandy was the love of my life.

. Pony boy was eating cake with two bit as I walked in. They were just hanging out. I know that if Mickey was on two bit would have been glued to the TV. He shore digs Mickey, it's like an obsession or something for him. You didn't want to watch TV. with two bits if ya actually wanted to know what is going on .he always put his comments in and found yourself laughing so hard you would miss half the program.

"hey there guys" two bit said. Ponyboy turned around and greeted us too. We both replied and watched the show with them. Steve of course had to go get cake before he watched TV. cake was like what Mickey was to two bit.

"did you guys here about the soc's who got there car window's smashed in" said steve, and I agreed.

" no way where the man who did it, I oughta give him a pat on the back, could you imagine the look on that soc's face!"

he said in amazement, then bursted out in one of his crazy laughs. When he broke out into laugh his choclate cake could have been seen for miles. He always thought his remarks were funnier than they really were.

"ya man one of the guys was howling about what a sight it was to see the expression on the guys's face" I added. We just sat and joked around for alittle while in till darry got home.

Me and ponyboy made dinner for him and it was ready for him when he walked in. we ate but he wasn't in a talking mood. He still is a 50 year old grumpy man in a 20 year old guys body. He was probably tired since he wasn't no kid anymore; working long days.

Note: some of the spelling mistakes are intentional because that's how people talk (ex wanna, na ect)


	2. Chapter 2

That night I went to bed with ponyboy. I lay in bed next to pony trying to get some sleep because I have to work early tomorrow. Both of us just couldn't get to sleep, or my tossing and turning kept him up.

"Hey pony?" I asked to see if he was awake.

"yea soda" he replied half asleep. I almost chickened out; blaming it on nevermind

because I didn't want to say it, but I did

"I still like sandy"

" o0o-" I cut him off though

" do you think I'm crazy for still liking sandy" I asked waiting in suspense for his answer.

"no" he said "I understand; you loved her soda. I meen you wanted to marry the girl!". Now this was the first time I said I liked her since she sent the letter back that I wrote her.

I remember it real well. _Flashback: _ Work was pretty tiring today. I opened the mailbox and got the mail to find the letter I sent to sandy that went to live with her grandma sitting in the mailbox. It looked the way it was when I sent it, not opened or even bent up at all. She didn't even care enough to read it, and the message was clear. My brothers were hacking off at each other again today and I just wanted to leave them be and be by myself for one second

"Ponnyboy you need to get that theme done" shouted darry.

"Stop always being on me darry" pony boy replied back.

Darry and pony boy have been fighting all the time lately, and I am always the brother put in between it to stop them from pounding each other. I just couldn't take the whole situation and the letter just pushed me over the edge. So I ran out. I just kept running in till I couldn't run anymore. I didn't expect them to notice and chase after me because they were so distracted but they did. They both stopped me and we had a good bonding time that night in the park. I running out was an eye opener to them and it thankfully helped and brought us all together, like we should be.

I haven't heard from her sense. That was 3 months ago. I secretely sometimes wonders how she is and if she is okay. I can't tell anyone that I still think about her though.

" thanks, I just feel like an idiot for loving her even after all this happened and her being over 500 miles away". I bursted out getting back to reality.

"Well soda there's some things that we don't know why we do them, but we do because it feel's right at this time" He managed to say half asleep.

"Yea your right, night pony" laughing it off and rolling over to finally getting some sleep

"night" he said back


	3. Chapter 3

The next day me and steve headed on our way to work. I analysed the conversation I had with pony boy while I worked. I forgot about her for a while. Lately I couldn't stop thinking of her but I forced myself to forget her for the rest of the day. Me and Steve joked while we worked, well when boss wasn't around. There are many different interesting types of people who we see at the DX. Most of the people who work with us are greasers. The customers though range very widely (thiefs, hard, nice, dumb, young, and old).

There's an old man who comes by everyday before he goes off to work. He is very nice but is a little odd. We could never figure out why he comes over to our side of town to pump his gas when it was pretty obvious he was a soc. He was really nice though and always told us the best stories about his adventures and when he was our age.

Then there was one of Tim's friends who had a beaten up car and was a scary looking guy. He looks like he would kill any guy who got on his bad side, and always acted like he was really tuff with his leather jacket, and scar on the side of his face. He says that we should of seen the other guys convincing us that he got in a fight with 4 other soc's and beat all of them up with his bare hands. I believed him though he looks like he has had scraps with other people before. The only thing those two guys had in common was that they went to the same gas station. It was kind of funny how the personalities of the people in our hood ranged so drastically from being extremely nice and sweet to being hard and bad because of a tough life.

During our lunch break all of us started drinking some cokes and joking around outside. I started to hear the roar of a car that came to a screeching halt at the gas station. We all turned looked at the nice mustang as three soc's stepped out and began walking towards us looking very pissed off.

"All you greases need to watch your backs for wrecking my car" the leader said pissed off while his two goons of friends stood a couple feet behind him on each side.

"When I find the guy who-" he started, but Steve cut him off stepping forward. We all just stood still and stared at him in shock.

"It's not us so stop wasting your breath and go" he demanded

"I'll bet it was you who did this; you greas!" he fired back getting even more angry

"Who do you think you are coming on our turf and threatening us like this?"

Steve replied confidently; getting in his face. He was about one foot away from the soc staring him down. They just stood there off guard not expecting him to say that. The soc's didn't want to mess with Steve because he once held off four men in a fight with a broken beer bottle. They were also out numbered, and were pussier than they tried to show. I stood a couple feet behind Steve with the other workers as an observer. The lead soc stared at him for a minute, and started to walk away as he did he turned around he said his last words while walking backwards

" just watch out, if a greas comes on our turf he better be careful because when I find the guy who wrecked my car he's dead meat" they finally reached the car and sped off in the nice mustang. Steve actually laughed in his crazy laugh when they left, and we all started to. When you think about it the situation was kind of humorous.A soc getting his car messed up and than coming on our turf and trying to threaten us when he was out numbered, what a Looney!

"none of them are going to jump us and if any of those jerks try to beat us up we will just kick the crap out of them like the last rumble" he said to all of us like he was the leader of a protest. I actually smiled at the thought of how we creamed those soc's at the rumble and them running away like babys.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I saw the cover of the daily paper on the table when we walked in, drinking our cokes. The headline read "thousands more die in Nam". I just stared at the picture of the cemetery on the page; the millions of white crosses in the rows. Was war really the answer to solve problems? I thought about it for a second. ahh whatever, they'll do what they want anyways I concluded pushing the paper over and getting back to work.

_Note: that paragraph was trying to say that the fighting between the two gangs doesn't solve anything. He feels like his opinion doesn't matter though because they will just do it anyway. It is very hard to stop people from disliking each other because everyone fights and the world isn't perfect and jolly so why should he try._

After work, Steve left for a little while, but said he would come by later. Pony decided to hang out with some other kids in our neighborhood; he's been doing that lately. You could tell that Pony was trying to make a new friend in place of Johnny, but we all knew it would never be the same. I, two bit, and darry went to go get some weed (Cigarettes) so we all could light up because we ran out. We walked to the drug store down the block; Darry was a couple feet ahead of us. I don't know why but he eather felt that he was superior to us by walking ahead of us, or hey maybe he just wanted to really get some cancer sticks.

"so those soc's came around the DX today threatening us and trying to figure out who busted up one of em's car" I said looking over at two-bit with a smile.

"Huh, yea those soc's have been asking for a rumble these past couple weeks"

He replied excited. "Those soc's needa get it" he added fiddling with his switchblade; opening it and closing it. Two- Bit loved instigating the tension between us and the socials, if it was a job he'd sure be rich! Honestly I could care less about the soc's I just wanted to have fun with my friends.

We reached the drug store and walked in. Darry went straight to the cashier to get the cancer sticks from behind the counter. Two-Bit and I walked up the aisles browsing. Two-bit stopped, looked at some candy, and magazines. He peaked around for any signs of the fuzz and then shoved them in his pockets. I just smiled at the sight of him stealing stuff he didn't need at all, but most of the time Two- Bit didn't any of the stuff he lifted. He just did it for the thrill. We left the little store with darry and laughed and gave a huge grin because he hadn't been caught. Darry opened the carton and handed us each a cig and we lighted up for the walk home.

When we got home Darry found out he had to go in to work becuase of an emergency. Pony and I made dinner, and hung out with Two-bit. Steve came in midway through dinner and ate some with us. We just joked around about silly stuff, and came up with ideas of why the heck Darry had to go into work!


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Dinner was over and we started to play a game of hearts while we had some weed. Weed always tasted the best after dinner. Darry didn't like us to smoke in the house, and for sure didn't like pony boy to smoke even those he's laid off him a little bit. Darry wasn't home however so the cards were dealt, smoke clouding the air, and men shooting the moon.

'Hey I'm going to see if Pony boy wants to play" I said

"Yea what is that little buddy doing anyway" Two-bit threw out behind his cards.

I walked up the stairs and went to our room to see what he was doing. I stood at the open door just peaking in at pony boy and saw him writing. He looked so peaceful and innocent. That's when I realized pony was in our room finishing up the manuscript for the short story he wrote for his English assignment. His teacher is urging him to turn it into a book, that's a lot bigger than a short story. His teacher though feels it's a story to tell, and needs to be heard. I think that pony would have written it anyway for Johnny and wanted to follow the wishes Johnny had in the letter that he found in the gone with the wind book. The two wishes were for him to stay gold(good) and follow his dreams, so this book was his dream that needed to be fulfilled.

"Hey there pony what you've been doing, wanna play hearts with the gang?" I asked looking at his typewriter.

"Na, I'm Just gunna lone it here and finish this story" he replied looking up with his naive eyes. After the trial I wondered if the rumbles and the deaths of dally and Johnny would turn him hard; loosing his innocence, intelligence and become just like all the other greasers, he wants to stay gold for Johnny thoug. He fortunately hasn't changed very much. Sometimes I wonder if he knows that even though he's jealous of my looks and happy go lucky attitude I am secretly more jealous of him for how smart he is unlike me.

"Okay and how's it sound so far" I asked eagerly

"You'll see when it's done. I know your going to dig it though soda, you always like my writing" he said with a smile. I grinned back

"You bet pony, and we'll deal you in whenever you want if you change your mind" I replied. I really hope for the best with pony's story. Him and Darry have come a long way, with a few set backs, and this story would just top it off if people thought it was tuff.

I sat back in my seat down at the table, and saw the cards Two-Bit passed to me before the game started. The point of hearts was to get the least amount of hearts. Each heart was worth a point and the queen of spades was 13 points so the person with the lowest score won. Also there was this thing called shooting the moon, which is when a person gets all the hearts (13 points)and the queen of spades(13 points) if they did it successfully they got zero points and everyone else got 26. It was very risky and dang I hardly ever done it right. We just played smoking and carrying on

"Steve you didn't deal yourself no fixed hand" I joked

"Hey Soda we better gang on him I think he's tryna shoot the moon" Two bit pointed out.

I blew out the smoke and laughed.

"Don't worry it's to late now. Now that I've got the queen of spades my cards are set for the moon" he chuckled at our helplessness.

Two-Bit winked at me like he had a plan up his sleeve.

Turns out steve forgot one big hole in his plan. He already played his king and ace of hearts, and Two-bit has the queen of hearts so Steve wouldn't be able to get that heart if it's played right.

"Looking for this Steve?" Two-bit said leading with the queen of hearts.

"dang!" Steve shouted out knowing his plan was toast being forced to forfeit his heart . Two-bit won that hand and the heart leaving Steve with 24 points him with 2 and myself with zero. We both laughed at steve.

"hey steve don't act so bent! It's just a game" I smirked.


End file.
